


all that I can be (gracefully, now)

by regionalsky



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angel fic, Dark, Drinking, I took so much time thinking about this, Josh is a stupid kid, M/M, Mental Disorders, Partial song fic, Save, Schizophrenia, Self Harm, Suicide, Tyler is 15, about guardian angels, at all, but it's not cliche, hes like 17, it's the opposite of cliche, it's well planned out, josh dun - Freeform, kind of cute at other times, mental issues, not graphic but I talk about it, not really a song fic, suicide mentions and depictions, super dark sometimes, tyler is an angel, tyler is dead, tyler joseph - Freeform, you'll like it i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 02:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11773707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regionalsky/pseuds/regionalsky
Summary: Tyler is dead, but not quite. He can still help.Josh can't really figure out what's going on.Who knows, when Tyler breaks rules and Josh can't figure out whether his mind is playing tricks on him or not.Who knows, when Tyler is probably just as bad at keeping people alive when he's dead.[TRIGGER WARNINGS: suicide mentions- nothing graphic]"Save?"





	1. head tilted down(save me?)

**Author's Note:**

> my dudes this one I actually am going to write, I've been writing and rewriting and talking about chapters and plot and characters with my coworkers literally all summer. It should be good. It's constantly evolving in my head. comment stuff because I know what I'm good at but not what I suck at so that's what you are for.  
> I DID ACTUALLY RESEARCH A SHIT TON OF STUFF

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (sorry about the indentation. I tried to fix it, trust me)

Rain slammed to the ground as a kid ran, at a full sprint, to the shelter of the overhang. He paused to catch his breath, slicking his hair back before he opened the door with a chime.

Tyler stumbled into the liquormart, fishing a twenty out of his pocket and slapping it on the counter. The cashier barely looked up.

“Svedka,” he muttered, shaking change in his hands. He had just enough.

           Rain pattered on the glass as Tyler tried his best to stand still, suddenly conscious of his socked feet and the puddles of rainwater he was leaving on the floor.

           “ID?” The cashier grumbled, raising an eyebrow. 

           Tyler pretended to check his pockets, forcing an annoyed look on to his face. “Shit! I forgot it at home, could I just-”

           “No ID, no drink.”

           “Please?”

           “No ID, no drink.”

           “Sir,” Tyler leaned on the counter and groaned. “Sir, I really need this right now.”

           “It seems like you’ve had enough already,” the cashier said, looking him up and down.       

“You should go home, kid. Send an older brother or something tomorrow.”

           Tyler shook his head slowly.”No,” He shook it faster, “no, that won’t work.”

           “What, did they kick you outta the bar when they realized you’re fifteen?”

           “I’m not fifteen,” he mumbled, sliding a fifty out of his pocket and handing it to the man. “And I can pay. Heard you do that?”

           He snatched the bill from Tyler’s outstretched hand and held it up to the flickering florescent lights. “What did you want again?”

           “Handle of Svedka.” Tyler pulled his phone out, pretending to respond to texts as he waited for the man to come back. He did, with the bottle in a paper bag.

“Now go, get outta here.” Tyler pulled the slightly damp twenty back, shoved it in his pocket, and walked slowly out of the store.

Right. Left. Right. Left.

He had never bought vodka at an actual liquor store before- when he had actually been in high school, you asked the homeless people camped out across the street. They’d get it for double, but no hassle. It was easy and actually cheaper than going in and buying it yourself.

Tyler couldn’t wait until morning. He needed the warmness, the numbness, the mind squeeze and the laughter. It was too late and stolen sips of beer could only get you so far.

He leaned his back against the wall outside the store, unscrewing the cap and taking a huge gulp. Coughing, he spit most of it up. It was too hard to drink standing up and the world wouldn’t stop moving.

SIt liding to the ground, he ran his hands roughly over his face before taking a smaller sip. 

There. Better. It burned going down, but hell, it would be fine. 

There were no parents to go home to, there was no school to go hungover to. He was free and still young; sixteen and he didn’t have a life he had to go live. No pressure. No college. No life. 

Only thing he had to worry about was Azrael. The man never fucking left him alone. He was a self-absorbed condescending fuck, and Tyler shuddered at the thought of having to face him as he raised the bottle to his lips.

And Brett. It was his fault, wasn’t it? The fear on the kid’s face when he first saw Tyler, all the questions he had that Tyler couldn’t answer. It was Tyler’s fault he had to walk him, hand in hand, over the hills until they got to the gates. He was too young, his small frame was too lanky. He hadn’t seen enough of the world.

It wasn’t fucking fair. It wasn’t fair. Tyler was supposed to love, but be detached- that’s what Azrael had said, pounded into him. Fuck that. Not everyone had been an angel for thousands of years, and Tyler couldn’t help it. He had seen too much of himself in the boy, with his need to fix everyone around him, to be useful. Brett never understood the world around him. He didn’t even get to see highschool.

Tyler hadn’t seen him since then- Azrael said he could at some point, but it had only been days since Tyler opened the door and waited, urging Brett on. Brett had looked back, terrified, but Tyler couldn’t go any further. He had to stay on this side of the gate.

And when he left? Tyler drank until he should have died, but it wasn’t possible. You have

to be alive to die.

When the world was less spin-y and more blackout-y, Tyler stood up and rubbed his face with his hands. Ignoring the stares of the middle-aged couple watching past, he clutched the bottle in a sweaty fist and slowly made his way back to his apartment down the street. It was close, but way too far away, and somehow he stumbled up the stairs to his bed without glancing at the papers.

The papers. The folder on his desk he didn’t want to read, but Azrael would know and he would come and Tyler would have to deal with the fucking living and flying headache he was.

Groaning and clinging to the bottle like a lifeline, Tyler dragged himself to the desk. He sat down in the chair hard and carefully placed the half empty bottle of svedka next to him. He had spilled a fair amount on the walk back, but some enough had made it into his bloodstream and that was the only thing keeping him sane.

Not that he was very sane.

The world got a lot more blackout-y and Tyler tried not to knock over the vodka as he fell over.

  
  
  
  


           It was early. Too early. Tyler didn’t want to deal with anyone.

There were footsteps. It wasn’t pounding in his head; it was footsteps.

Dread blossomed in his stomach as he heard his door open and push shut, the blinds were opened and someone crouched down next to him.

“Tyler,” 

It was too early in the goddamn morning.

“Tyler, we need to talk.”

It was him. Azrael. Tyler moaned and rolled over, shielding his eyes from the rising sun with a a pair of boxers on the floor.

“Nowedont,” he muttered.

“You need to get up, and we need to talk.”

“I don’t care,” Tyler mumbled, and flinched at the stench of his own breath.

“Yes you do,”

“I don’t care. Go away. I don’t care, I don’t want to, I can’t-”

“Come on, Tyler, get up.” A strong hand grabbed the boxers ripped them off his face. Tyler clenched his teeth to hold back the moan of pain from the sun and the sudden movement, sitting up to glare at the man, standing over six feet with wrinkled, tan skin. His eyes were framed with long, silver hair, and they seemed to pierce your soul in the scariest, most vulnerable way- and no matter how shitty Tyler acted, he was still terrified of Azrael.

“I’m hungover, man,” he grumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Couldn’t this wait until later?”

           “I think,” Azrael said, reaching for the bottle of svedka laying on the ground next to him, picking it up with his fingers to avoid the puddle around it,“that you need to lay off the drinking.”

           “Fuck off,” Tyler snarled, standing up and snatching the bottle before the man could take it. He rolled his eyes as Tyler collapsed on the the bed, yawning and wincing at his headache. 

           The silence was thick with hate as Tyler pinched his damp white t-shirt away from his skin it and over his head- it was soaked with booze and sweat and although he wouldn’t admit it, tears. 

“Can we talk?” Azrael pulled the chair out from the desk and lowered himself into it.

           Tyler laughed bitterly and laid back on the bed. “So now it’s a question?”

           “How are you?” The old man waited with patient eyes. He was never bothered, no matter how shitty Tyler tried to be.

           “I don’t care,” he growled. “I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care-”

           “Yes you do, you have to.”

Tyler ignored him, raising the mostly empty bottle to his mouth, clenching his toes as he felt the fire slide in to his mouth.

           “I think that you should really go easy on the drinking,” Azrael said, raising his eyebrows sympathetically. “The hangover looks really painful.”

            “I’m not drinking,” Tyler muttered, taking a sip and trying as hard as he could not to flinch or throw up. He stared intently at a sock lying on the corner of his bed.

           “Tyler, you need to get your stuff together. You have another boy, he's- he's really something different, he needs you.”

           “No.”

           He took a deep breath and tried again. “Look, I think we need to talk about Brett.”

           “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He shook his head, lifted the bottle to his lips, and paused. “And I don’t care.”

           “It’s okay to mess up. I want you to know that,” The old man began. “I want you to know you’re fine, we all go through messing up-”

           Tyler slammed the bottle on the nightstand. “Yeah, but you didn’t all fuck up as badly as I did, did you, Azrael?”

           “You didn’t mess up that badly,” Azrael insisted, leaning forwards in his chair.

           “But,” Tyler held up a finger. “But. He is dead.”

           “He was going to die anyways! I watched him, we all knew it was going to happen.”

“He was fourteen.”

“Okay. But you have another boy, another kid, he’s older, he’s different-”

Tyler laughed. “What’d he do? Why does he need me? Is he so fucked up that he needs someone just as fucked in the head?”

Azrael shook his head. “Tyler, you’re really not that messed up.”

“Yeah?” Tyler stood, ignoring the shooting pain in his head. “You know how I got here, what does that say for being fucked up?" 

“You made the decision- both of them, actually.” He said simply, leaning back in his chair. “You chose to overdose, to kill yourself, and then you chose to stay here. No one made you.”

“Where else was I supposed to go?” Tyler gestured wildly.

“On,” The man said, shrugging.

“Is that where Brett is?” Tyler sneered. “Is he just, I guess, on?”

“Tyler.” Azrael stood up, reaching out for the smaller boy. “You. Did. Not. Mess. Up.”

“Then why is he dead? Why is he dead?” Tyler screamed, slapping his hand away. “You don’t know shit, get away from me. Get the fuck away from me.”

“You didn’t mess up. It is not your fault,” he stepped closer to Tyler, a reassuring look on his face.

“Then why is he dead?” Tyler said, his bare torso gleaming with sweat.

“They all die at some point- that’s why we don’t get attached,” Azrael said. “We all make mistakes, and you’ll get better.”

           “Then why is he dead? Then why is he dead? Then why is he dead?” Tyler asked, quieter and quieter until he was whispering. “Then why is he dead?”

           “He’s happy now,” Azrael whispered. “He’s happy.”

           “Then why-”

            “He’s happy, son, and you don’t need to worry about him anymore-” He enfolded Tyler into an embrace as he disintegrated into hiccups and hitched breaths. “You’re okay.”

           Later, when the sun was higher in the sky, the old man picked his jacket up from the floor.

“You get another shot. Another chance.” The old man picked a folder up from the desk and handed it to Tyler. “His name is Josh.”

           Tyler, with red rimmed eyes, actually thanked the man as he left. 

 

 


	2. apathy (it's too cold in here)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh  
> is  
> a messed  
> up  
> dude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just to explain who josh is because he needs to be understood by at least someone.  
> it's short, but it's important.

It was always the “u up?” text. Almost always. Any person that had ever depended on Josh had to break the silence with a casual three letter text- they couldn’t break down the wall in case he wasn’t awake. Anything more than the three letters would be embarrassing, too meaningful, in the morning. They had to pretend they didn’t care, because if they did and he didn’t respond, they would look bad.  
Then they wouldn't talk to him ever again. They wouldn't open up.  
So Josh always sat, waited, he slept but lightly. He was always there to respond. He was always up.  
He was awake when anyone needed him. That was a lot.  
At first, he didn’t know why they asked him. People needed attention and for some reason, they came to him. But he was good at it. Talking. Conversing. Listening, more. Convincing, persuading, memorizing, learning. He knew the people who would text him with the three letters better than anyone else; he knew them better than he knew himself.  
Who was he? A friend. No, an ear and a brain. A helper. Sort of. That was the only thing he was sure of.  
It was junior year, and Josh still didn’t fucking know himself. How? High school was supposed to be about learning yourself, finding friends, and moving on in life.  
Yeah okay, he had friends, but did he really? They liked him because he made their small-world problems into universe-collapsing catastrophes, he convinced them they mattered and legitimized their issues. He helped. They, the people, his friends, moved on. The morning was a new time, the world restarted, and he was forgotten.  
The poems helped. The ones he wrote.  
Not much. But they were better than nothing.  
They let him expand his problems- lie, almost. Exaggerate and draw them out of his chest for a moments, even if only a moment, because that fleeting lightness was better than constant clay around his mind.  
He assumed that was what other people were doing when they were talking to him.

 

He was writing one, that night. It wasn’t a good one. It was what he thought he was smart in calling a nonsense poem, always laughed when he read them afterwards. The next morning. They were written on the side of the page, in halting, questioning sentences or rambling paragraphs. Filled with colors and smells, because smell was the most impressionable memory to him. A whiff of something he didn’t know the name of was enough to catapult him back to the past.

It was about his first kiss, a silly, stupid one from middle school. For some reason, that memory chose to fuck him over that night. He couldn’t get ut out of his head, he couldn’t think of anything else until he captured that moment in time and put it on the paper in front of him.  
He read it, or what he had written so far, over and over and over. It would suck in the morning, it would embarrass him beyond words, and he would probably delete it, but while the moon cast shadows under his eyes, he loved it. Fell in love with the smell, the smell he could actually put a name on.  
Dandelions. The bitter flowers filled a majority of his good memories, and there were more scents. Fanta- orange fizzy sweetness. The slightly wet dirt of the baseball pitch. Spray sunscreen that stuck to his skin as he sat, criss crossed, in the freshly cut grass that scratched his legs.  
He tasted, too. Pizza clung to the girl’s lips, so did the mint chapstick that lingered on his teeth.  
He liked it, he thought he did. He liked the closeness and the fingers softly tracing circles on the nape of his neck, he liked the embrace, feeling her damp shirt against his arm, even though he didn’t like the girl. It was okay; he could pretend it was someone else. Everyone was enjoying watching, anyways.  
It started getting fast. Too fast, because she liked it. He forgot her name, and she seemed to forget the wide eyed kids sitting around them and staring. He thought it would end; it didn’t. Not for a while.  
The dare was supposed to be a kiss. It wasn’t. She forced her hands and his hands in places that weren’t wrong, but weren’t right. It was too much. He laughed it off, but went home after that.  
That was the last day of school, seventh grade, how old had he been? Thirteen?  
He shook his head. Three years ago. He had barely touched anyone since then.  
Two whole years of high school, he was an upperclassman, and the only person who had touched their lips to his was wearing monstrous blue eyeshadow and had collections of sillybands on her wrists. Stupid. Pathetic. Weak.  
Not like he told anyone, he had to be relatable. They asked and he answered what he thought was the right thing to say- they were stupid questions, ones he could look up and find an article on from a million different tabloid magazines. He didn't use those most of the time, just said what they wanted to hear while being as helpful as possible.  
Even if he knew what the right advice was, he couldn't say it most of the time. It would be too daunting, too polarizing, and people wouldn't listen. It was better to compromise.  
People liked him a lot, they thought he had his shit together. Definitely seemed like he did, honestly, because he had an answer for every question.  
The screen blinked at him, asking if he would finish. The mostly blank page stared at him. Would he?  
No, it wasn't worth it. He slammed his laptop shut and unplugged his phone, collapsing on his bed. 2:43 Am- the night had barely started.  
There were texts, the normal "hey"s and "what's up"s but nothing worth responding to. Maybe he could close his eyes...  
His phone buzzed, and Josh's eyes snapped open. It was laying next to his face, and his bleary eyes could barely see the name. Jenna.

-Are you up?  
He shook himself awake and sat up.  
-yeah, what's up?  
her typing bubble was up for a minute.  
-Jackson is being weird idk what to do  
-yeah? what is he doing?  
-he wants to have sex and I do I love him but I don't want to get caught and he thinks it's because I don't love him and he seems really hurt but I'm kind of scared  
Josh rolled his eyes. This bullshit again. This was always the problem with girls- they never knew how to say no, they never knew when to care about themselves and not what other people thought.  
-then tell him? If you don’t want to you don’t want to and you shouldn’t let him force you  
-he’s not forcing me no no no  
She typed for a while.  
-no it’s not that he’s forcing me at all because I want to I really do and I want to make him feel good I just don’t want to get caught, you know? he isn’t telling me to do anything  
-jenna if you don’t want too you don’t want to. you’re gorgeous and smart and funny and confident, and so many people love you that it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re having sex. if he doesn’t accept the fact that you don’t want to, fuck him, and move on because he isn’t worth your time. you deserve the best people in your life and if he can’t respect what you want then you don’t deserve him  
There. It was best to compliment people, to tell them they were better and more well liked than they actually were. They would listen to him more that way.  
He didn’t really care about Jenna as a person- she was emotionally stable and wasn’t really dangerous to herself or anyone else, she was fine. Just dealing with the things all teenage girls went through, and if he could help that, he would. He would try to prevent a girl from having sex before she was ready because it was the right thing to do. No matter how much he rolled his eyes, no matter how exasperated he acted for himself, he cared a lot. If she allowed herself to be pressured into it anyways, he would feel like he failed. He did it wrong. All these people trusted him to make them feel better, and all these people needed to feel better. He couldn’t just not care.  
She responded with something full of “I love you!!”s and “you’re right!”s and he rolled his eyes. It was stupid how easily her problems could be solved. She got told one thing by a boy she barely knew and poof, it disappeared into thin air. Gone. It wasn’t fair.  
It wasn’t fucking fair that she understood herself, that she knew what was going on. She probably didn’t spend any time thinking about her mind, about anything. She just knew. Whatever she was upset about could be solved just-like-fucking-that, because she just needed reassurance.  
Most people were like that, actually. Josh did the same thing for all of them.  
There were a few kids that had a little more going on, issues that couldn’t be solved with  
a fifteen minute conversation. Those were the ones that really kept him awake. It was crazy, the things some kids had seen and done. All Josh had seen was himself, really. Just little things. He had heard the worst but never seen it, never felt it with his own mind. He didn’t understand the edge some of these kids were driven too, but he was a good enough actor to pretend to. They thought he had had as dark a past as them, but in reality, he stole bits and pieces from other stories and lives to create a patchwork of a history so he could claim he was as fucked up as them.  
Yeah, Josh was a liar. A dirty liar, a good liar, he pulled on mindsets and pasts like he did shoes and socks. He was someone new to every single person- he wasn’t even acting, he had to believe it himself. He didn’t do it for himself, his ego, or anything as shallow as that. He did it so people would think he understood them.  
That was probably why he had no idea what the fuck was going on inside his head.


	3. a brief history of an angel (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ty is a kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to put this way later but I figure that I need to get more parts of the story out because I'm stuck on chapter three.  
> so this is chapter three!!

_It was what being a teenager should have felt like- right?_

_He was thirteen, sweat sticking the sheets to his skin and licking his lips over and over, trying to get feeling back in them._

_This was normal, and he trusted these people, they were his friends, he had known them for years, it was okay. They wouldn't let anything happen to him._

_But they were all drunk, and his mind was spinning out of control, so here he was._

_They laughed and he tried, he tried hard to understand what was going on and what was funny but the_ sheets _matched the_ drapes _and the carpet had too many swirling patterns and not enough_ stop.

_It wasn't like this was his first time, he (almost) didn't have to force it down and plug his nose and pray to god they didn't see his eyes squeezing shut, but again, it didn't matter. As long as he wasn't in another room telling coach and as long as he wasn't dead he was fine. Maybe confused, but fine._

 

 _There was a sonic across the street, they could see it through the dirty hotel window next to the_ drapes _and rain hadn't touched the ground yet that night. There were cookie dough flurries just waiting and they stood up and Tyler did on his own two feet._

_He tried. The carpet was, in fact, soft, regardless of the spins it did in his eyes._

_"Hey are you coming?"_

_"Hey-"_

_"Hey-"_

_"Hey,"_

_A string of spam texts but they were talking and the whole world was b l o c k y like the game he played when he was ten. Three years ago. But that was too long ago. Too long to care and too long to remember and jesus christ where was he?_

_"Hey where'd he go?"_

_"Hey hey probly wimped out."_

_"Hey hey ayyy,"_

_Someone grabbed his arm and his head pinched in and he was finally standing but the ground was kind of heavy too heavy and it hurt him_ right in between his eyes _like an arrow had been shot there who was trying to kill him?_

_Not waiting, they were not waiting for slow time they wanted to spend united states dollars and there was something silly. Something silly about the way they said moh-nee and Tyler retched, there were things trying to climb his throat and he clamped his mouth shut._

_"Get the kid to the bathroom!"_

_"Shit he gonna blow-"_

_"Woahhhhhh-"_

_He had no idea if they were mad or upset because there was nothing more than dropped ts and stretched es (and dotted i's?)._

_"Lesgo."_

_The door clicked shut and he couldn't leave. They had the keys and being locked out like this was exactly what not to do and he squeezed his eyes, but nothing came up, which did not make sense, not at all, because that was how he made it go down._

_TV was still blaring in the background and if he could get himself back on the bed he would watch it. Maybe they'd bring him back something, or something, because he liked ice cream too and_ fuck it if he didn't have money with him.

_"Hey, guys, what's- holy fuck," a voice echoed into the bathroom. A hand touched his back, and Tyler twisted his neck around._

_A boy, with curly black hair and blue eyes, crouched on the floor. He had a necklace, a thread, really._

_"You okay, kid?"_

_Tyler nodded, but the world was dark and heavy and the ground seemed really soft._

_It wasn't._


End file.
